I think Switzerland is somewhere everyone should experience at least once. We'd been trying to get there for years and finally went in summer, which turned out to be the right call. There's an overwhelming sense of peace I haven't felt anywhere else, with Kyoto maybe the only exception. It’s hard to explain how Switzerland feels. The landscape forces you to become completely absorbed in your surroundings.
We stayed in Bönigen, a small village just outside Interlaken on the edge of Lake Brienz. Surrounded by mountains, the lake has an almost unreal turquoise colour. We swam there every afternoon and it became one of the simplest but most memorable parts of the trip.
Obviously, when you go to Switzerland, you hike. And hiking we did. Hiring a car turned out to be one of the best decisions we made. It gave us the freedom to move between lakes and villages without planning every part of the day. Even the most ordinary drive became part of the experience, passing waterfalls and scenery that would normally be the destination itself.
Oeschinensee was the highlight. Gondola up from Kandersteg, then about an hour and a half along the cliffside trail, the water sitting bright blue below you the entire way. Patches of snow still on the slopes in July. You're just watching the lake change colour as you get higher. We swam at the bottom. It's the most beautiful lake we've ever seen and it isn't close.
The villages deserve their own mention. Grindelwald was surrounded by the dramatic mountain scenery Switzerland is known for, while Mürren felt almost completely removed from ordinary life. Sitting above the Lauterbrunnen valley, it was unbelievably quiet. There were just timber houses, walking paths and mountains appearing between the clouds.
For our final night, we went to Lucerne. After spending most of the trip in smaller mountain towns, it felt lively without losing that same sense of calm. We wandered through the old town, crossed the Chapel Bridge and found plenty of bars and restaurants along the water. Lunch was at Anotr Café on Weinmarkt, a small specialty coffee spot with a tree growing through the middle of it. Specialty coffee and açaí bowls. The fit-out we'd happily steal for a store. Lucerne is somewhere we'd go back and stay longer.
Switzerland has a strange way of making you reconsider what we're all rushing towards. Everyday life is often built around being busy, working, planning, moving and searching for the next interesting thing to do. Maybe there's something equally meaningful about having very little to do beyond walking through the mountains, swimming in a lake and soaking up nature around you. Whatever peace is supposed to feel like, Switzerland is one of the closest places we've found to it.
Switzerland, Summer 2026
Found Sydney